Hackwork

Rating: 1/10 (12 March 2004)

Wow, here's a real surprise...yet another film nowadays is nothing compared to the hype. "Scariest film since "The Exorcist?" Listen people, here's the truth. "28 Days Later" is NOT scary in any way, shape or form. Not a bit whatsoever.
The film is a huge letdown. It's a poor excuse for a zombie movie, "end of the world" movie, and all the other kinds of films it unsuccessfully apes. Now, you don't have to be original to make a good film. Even "Star Wars" has plenty of influences and many direct steals, as Lucas always freely admitted. So seeing "28 Days Later" rip off so many films is not the problem, it's just that it does it so poorly.
The beginning of the film isn't "amazing" or anything special. It's a typically mainstream horror film beginning of a lame movie, that's all. From then on, the film drags and drags, until the last half hour, where a few interesting things actually begin to happen. Until then, it's a sleep-enducer.
No, it isn't "deep" and it isn't "profound." it isn't "intellectual" and it isn't over anyone's head. It's simply dull.
The script is horrible with countless holes and lapses of sense, and the actual filming and editing leaves a lot to be desired. Another reviewer pointed out that you really can't get scared because the editing is so poorly done when the zombies are around, you just simply don't get scared.
Even a scene that started out decently, the tire-changing scene, turns into crap because when the zombies come around, the editing starts doing all the "MTV video-style" garbage. There's a real lot of that throughout the entire film. It doesn't add 'realism" or make anyone scared. All it does is make the film look worse than it already is.
There is one brief scene which is halfway decent, the "mirror" scene, and even that isn't scary at all, just a little suspenseful. But to be fair, a decent minute out of the film.
It's not a matter of "getting it" or any crap like that. Plenty of films have done all the same things much, much better that "28 Days Later" strains so hard to do, and more profoundly even, if that's what you are looking for. "28 Days Later" is just simply a bad film that strains and tries WAAAY too hard.
Really, this movie is just another reason why films on the whole are turning into garbage. The nicest thing I can say about this slop is that it is better than "The Blair Witch Project," which was the biggest scam in movie history. (The scam being the cleverness in getting people in the theater to see that complete mess of a "movie." Can't anyone make a decent horror film anymore??